Hallandale Beach honors fired lifeguard with key to the city

Mayor Joy Cooper hands former lifeguard Tomas Lopez a key to the city as a… (Joe Cavaretta, Sun Sentinel )

July 9, 2012|By Ihosvani Rodriguez, Sun Sentinel

HALLANDALE BEACH — Within the span of a week, former Hallandale Beach lifeguard Tomas Lopez helped save a drowning man, lost his job, received international recognition and was handed a key to the city.

The 21-year-old lifeguard ended the weeklong ride on Monday telling a packed city chambers the same thing he's been saying since the day he was canned for leaving his zone to help make a rescue.

"All I did was what I was supposed to do," Lopez said during the brief ceremony.

City officials honored Lopez with a shiny gold key while distancing themselves from the lifeguard's former employer, Jeff Ellis Management, the firm the city pays to protect the beaches.

The company and the city received an avalanche of criticism for how Lopez was fired.

Company officials on Monday indicated in an email to the city that the firm will not seek to renew its $1 million contract when it expires later this year.

"Despite our record of safety, the mishandling of the Tomas Lopez incident has undermined public confidence," wrote company owner Jeff Ellis. "We want to do the right thing and enable the city to move forward with a new vendor."

The announcement came after a brief ceremony that honored Lopez and a few others for their actions last week.

"This is only a small token of our gratitude," Cooper said before handing Lopez the symbolic key. "Nothing can repay you for your actions."

Wearing a dark suit and tie, Lopez sat in the commission dais next to Maksim Samartsev, the 19-year-old tourist from Estonia who nearly drowned.

The man's father, Ivan Samartsev, spoke on behalf of his son who doesn't speak English.

"Thank you for saving my son's life," the father told Lopez. "You are now his brother. You are now also my son. Thank you."

During his brief acceptance speech, Lopez was quick to thank the lifeguards who have since quit out of protest or lost their jobs for saying they would've taken the same actions.

Also honored with a key was Marisol Azofra, a good Samaritan who pulled Samartsev from the waters. Several of the city's paramedics who responded to the scene where also formally recognize.

Azofra said she was sitting on a beach chair when she noticed Samartsev was in trouble in waist-high water. She estimated that he had been submerged under water for at least two minutes before she got to him.

"It was just a pure reaction. I just ran in," Azofra said.

Samartsev's father said his son is in town visiting him for the summer. His son told him he felt something push him into the water and then drag him under.